a dude i work with is real into baseball card collecting with his kid. its cool. thinking over my past collecting and talking about hunting and going to card shows with him, i realized card collecting is just gambling for kids. adults too, but they can gamble anyway. when i was a kid 15 cards or so in a pack cost 50 cents if i recall. i got topps wax packs with a stick of gum. i can taste the opening of a new pack in my throat right now. inhaleing that chalky gum dust, and flipping the cards face up to see what gems you might find. it was like the lotto. so many hopes and fantasies of what rookie card, or rarity you might find. i was never going to grow up! retire young, rich, and off baseball cards. it had all the hallmarks of degenerate gambling. i would never take the first pack on the top of the box. each box held 4 packs per layer. i'd go at least to the second deepest layer, and sometimes to the bottom. it was a superstition akin to cutting a deck of cards or picking a raffle ticket out of a hat. why would they put the rare, money cards right on top for amateurs to "accidentally" pick from? i knew better.
most times, i couldnt wait to get out of the store. i had to open them right then. like the person at the convenience store holding up the line while they scratch thier lotto tickets i rifled through my cards, knowing very little about baseball other than my at the time, beloved minnesota twins, searching for names i might have heard on the radio, or seen on commercials. rookie cards didnt mean anything to me, at the time i didnt understand, i thought it was a marketing ploy to get me to like some young no name player. i didnt care about them. i wanted jose canseco, kirby puckett, nolan ryan.
it made me feel the same why i feel now, on the rare occasion i buy a lotto ticket on a whim, depressed. let down, forgotten, unlucky and abused. like i should never have allowed myself to get excited. its never the card i wanted. when i thought i had something, the real jocks at school would scoff, and my potential winner would be used to motorize my shcwinn.
most times, i couldnt wait to get out of the store. i had to open them right then. like the person at the convenience store holding up the line while they scratch thier lotto tickets i rifled through my cards, knowing very little about baseball other than my at the time, beloved minnesota twins, searching for names i might have heard on the radio, or seen on commercials. rookie cards didnt mean anything to me, at the time i didnt understand, i thought it was a marketing ploy to get me to like some young no name player. i didnt care about them. i wanted jose canseco, kirby puckett, nolan ryan.
it made me feel the same why i feel now, on the rare occasion i buy a lotto ticket on a whim, depressed. let down, forgotten, unlucky and abused. like i should never have allowed myself to get excited. its never the card i wanted. when i thought i had something, the real jocks at school would scoff, and my potential winner would be used to motorize my shcwinn.
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